where yeast has colonized the tonguein a crust preventing speech. No bottlebrush tree can brush it off, nor we,

the need to have direction, be someremedy—the dog has a blazon of burrson her chest, and we go home to pull

them off, find the fruit-of-the-monthsunk to counters, its scales a maze of rot.We hold the knife as we hold

our lives: to the basket of pineapples,not having cut one before. We twista crown, kitchen drowns in its manna

smell and slicing the scales we go for the core,mangle it with our stubborn torque,mostly throw them away. It’s knives

we use for shredding and to do the spreading,too. We stroke your hand all afternoon—ambrosia that we’re making; these days

we stomach canned fruit.

Cate Lycurgus’s poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from American Poetry Review, Third Coast, Gulf Coast Online, and elsewhere. A 2014 Ruth Lilly Fellowship Finalist, she has also received scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences. Cate currently lives south of San Francisco, California, where she edits interviews for 32 Poems and teaches professional writing to aspiring accountants.